Category: Movie Reviews

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Documentary Movie Reviews

Nanking – A Powerful Documentary Inspired by the Late Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking

When I first saw the bombs landed on Iraq’s capital Baghdad on CNN, I felt the tears at the back of my eyes. I had the same feeling when I watched the Japanese in “Nanking” dropping the bombs onto the city of China, Nanking – even a more intense feeling. I was gasping for air. It is hard to watch because wartime documentary films are not Hollywood films. Those were the real houses built by real people lived by real people and the corpses scattered on the ground were real. The crying of the survived ones was as real as those who were dead. Since young, I spent lots of time reading the history of China during WWII – especially on the Japanese invasion. The atrocity of the war and the suffering of the people. I have read pages and pages of historical articles and I have probably seen more gruesome pictures of the execution of the Chinese by the Japanese than I should have at that young age. One picture that still vividly lives in my mind till today is a sea of dead semi-naked Chinese women lying flat on the ground with long sticks inserted into their private parts. I read that the Japanese wouldn’t want to waste bullets on Chinese women, sticks would do the job.

War is horrible and of course, I don’t despise the Japanese (though I am angry with them for not admiting what they have done in the past till today). I despise the war. The documentary film “Nanking” was played out by a group of contemprary actors taking the role of the missionaries, university professors, doctors, and businessmen. These foreigners witnessed the cruelty of war and they stayed behind to establish a safety zone for the Chinese refugees in Nanking. The interviews of the war survivors were conducted with the real people who did survive the war. Hearing them recounting what they had been through made me want to tear. The emotion is so real and overwhelming. These are people of over 80 years of age and you could visualize the scenes with their words.

“Nanking” also displays some of the video clips taken during the war and some, I would suppose, are unofficial interviews with the Japanese soldiers. What “Nanking” has brought out is aligned with my expectation on how the history should be told. At the end of the film, my friend and I turned to each other and hope that we won’t see a war at our doorsteps in our generation, and the next, and the next after, and the …

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Fantasy & Sci-fi Movie Reviews

The Golden Compass – A Promising Beginning Of A Potential Trilogy

When Nicole Kidman first made an appearance in the movie, the dinning hall scene struck a certain sense of familiarity. I whispered to Cynthia, “That dinning hall reminds me of my University days.” Turns out that some scenes were filmed in Oxford, UK (not sure if that particular scene was). As far as I can remember, the dinning halls of the colleges in Oxford look somewhat the same (note: I admit I have not been to all 39 colleges) as I did receive invites from friends of different collages for dinner once in a blue moon. Two long rows of tables along the longer side of the rectangular hall with the “high table” at the short end furthest away from the entrance. Usually the guests of honour and the college fellows take up the high table while the rest of the students dine at the long tables.

But familiarity is certainly not enough for me to like the movie. I admit that I chose “The Golden Compass” because I am impressed by the trailer and I am a big fan of Nicole Kidman. Her airtime in “The Golden Compass” is much less than Michelle Pfeiffer in “Stardust”. Naturally, I would be disappointed. Even Daniel Craig (the latest James Bond) and the Bond girl Eva Green don’t get too much airtime either. The main star of the movie turns out to be a teenage actress from UK – Dakota Blue Richards. She has beaten 10,000 others for the role.

Dakota Blue Richards can easily be one of my favorite child actresses (my favorite being Dakota Fanning). It is hard not to feel her emotions as she journeys from the collage she resides in, and into the land of the ice bears, flying witches with arrows and bows, and different factions of humans that wield guns.

“The Golden Compass” is based on the children novel “Northern Lights” (1995) written by Philip Pullman. That book has won the Carnegie Medal for children’s fiction and yet, has generated a share of controversy with claims that the book attempts to sell atheism to kids. The world of the religious skeptic Philip Pullman is dark and individualistic and religion is evil. Fans of the book are disappointed with “The Golden Compass” as the religion aspect is being washed down in order to perhaps gain a wider audience. For example, the evil organization that dominates the world is renamed to “Magisterium” while in the book, it is referred to as “the church”.

To me, it doesn’t matter. “The Golden Compass” may as well be the extreme opposite end of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and I would say, it is perhaps closer to a scaled down version of the “Lord of the Ring”. I am certainly looking forward to what the next two installments will bring, that is if the filmmaker has decided to carry on producing them.

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Action & Thriller Movie Reviews

Hitman – You May Actually Like It

This is how the Movie Review Squad works: one of us fill in an application form 118(A) to propose a movie title and if none of us veto or veto the veto, we will go ahead with the booking – with exceptions of course. Somehow my fetish for horror flicks is always vetoed by TK and Cynthia, and so is my fetish for Asian movies. But that is another story.

On Saturday morning, I passed TK’s 118(A) form to Cynthia and she OK’d it. So I asked TK to go ahead with the booking. I knew “Hitman” is a video game adaptation so as a gaming geek, I certainly have no issue with it. TK picked it and God knows why he picked it. Cynthia thought the leading actor was someone else. So what was the outcome?

One dude behind us was saying stuffs like, “Man, should have watched Enchanted instead”. Another dude replied, “That is a one-star movie, that’s why!” We certainly had no idea that it is a one-star movie. Otherwise I would have vetoed it. Surprisingly, all three of us seemed entertained by “Hitman”. It is a brainless show, I am warning you. Read on if you have an open mind.

The casting is pretty international: Americans, Scottish, Danish, and Ukrainian. I thought the Ukrainian actress, Olga Kurylenko, is pretty hot for her role but Cynthia did not think so. Vin Diesel, who is the executive producer, was supposed to play the role of the lead actor Agent 47. I wonder why he stepped down and here comes the Hawaiian origin Timothy Olyphant to take on the role. I also enjoy the Scottish actor Dougray Scott’s performance whom some of you may have recognised him from the TV series Desperate Housewives. The acting is acceptably decent – judging from the computer gaming perspective. The storyline is simple, nothing fancy. It started off like the TV series Dark Angel whereby orphans are being taken in and trained as assassins.

The question is: both Agent 47 (Mike Whittier) and Mike Whittier from the Interpol (Dougray Scott) have killed people in the course of their work, what makes the good guy has the right to take life? That was the beginning of the movie and then the storyline rewound all the way to couple of months ago. The story is not that deep, trust me. But it is enjoyable. “Hitman”, I think, has faithfully followed the gaming culture. For example, at one point, all the hitmen dropped their guns and have decided to fight with their swords. Cynthia was screaming like, “How can?!” But in a computer gaming environment, it is very common to switch weapons. I told her that she is fortunate not to see a chainsaw … ha ha ha (yep, it is a legitimate weapon commonly used). And there is one particular scene I love. Agent 47 was lying on the bed and the sexy Nika Boronina (Olga Kurylenko) was on top of him with a red dress falling off her shoulders and no panties. There was no sex (close enough). It was classic. In a gaming culture, there may be lots of blood violence with pieces of corpse flying everywhere, it is never meant to be pornographic (except for a few). I love it. Not to forget to mention the music effect. It is so computer gaming, if you know what I mean. The music always intensifies when something is going to happen.

If you are in for some brainless entertainment or if you are a gaming enthusiast, “Hitman” may be for you. I personally don’t think “Hitman” deserves such a poor rating. I know there are quite a few netizens who agree with me.

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Drama Movie Reviews

2 Days In Paris – The Magic Of Julie Delpy Continues

A well reviewed film written, acted, directed, edited, co-produced, and scored by Julie Delpy – I had no idea when I booked the seats for the Movie Review Squad. Being such a huge fan of Julie Delpy, I really don’t need any other reason to watch “2 Days In Paris”. It was a nice surprise that this film is very much like “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset”. The characteristic lively dialogues are still there. The only difference is that the individual scenes are relatively shorter in “2 Days In Paris” rather than a series of long takes.

In “2 Days In Paris”, French photographer Marion (Julie Delpy) traveled with her American boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) to Paris and took the opportunity to introduce him to her family. During this brief stay, Jack was overwhelmed with the country of a different language, different culture, and perhaps meeting too many of Marion’s ex-boyfriends may not be such a good idea after all.

One thing you should agree with me after watching the movie would be: the chemistry between the actors and actresses is amazing. Then I realized that Marion’s parents in the movie are Julie Delpy’s real life parents. The cat in the movie also belongs to her. And most amazing of all, her boyfriend in the movie is her ex-boyfriend in real life.

There are lots of quality scripting in “2 Days In Paris”. Julie Delpy is such a talent and unfortunately she prefers to release her work as independent films. The critics love her works but somehow that doesn’t translate to box office results. You really can’t miss this one if you enjoy watching “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” or you enjoy watching the genre of romantic drama. The following trailer may not do the film justice but you’ll get an idea what the film is about.

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Foreign Movie Reviews Romance

Sugar And Spice – My Heart Bled A Hundred Times

Life is fragile. One moment you are up in the sky, hopping from cloud to cloud. Everything looks bright. You love the caress of the wind on your face. Another moment, everything you stand onto crumble into pieces. What you believe in, what you live for … and you ask yourself: Who am I? What am I? Are we the projection of what the people see and think about us? Are we the shadow of our past and who we are not? Or we are what we identify with? The curse of empathy. We humankind promotes love but yet we have conflicts everywhere, every single moment. At this very moment, millions are displaced in the war-torn eastern African nation of Somalia, the Saudi rape victim is sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison (what does human right means as a female in an Arab country?!), whales are being brutally killed as the source of protein … but no, how I feel now is nothing to do with civilizations that I have yet to encounter or yet another species we are driving to extinction. How I feel, what I feel is the very conflicts or hostility I experience somewhere not thousands of miles away. Then I ponder, is the ability of being able to empathize a curse? What if no one cares about how I feel, who I am, or what I am? Why do I care so much to people around me? I remember those FHM girls lined up in front of a car so that photographers could take a good picture with them, and the car. Someone shouted: which number, which number, how much? That was disrespectful, totally disgusting. We don’t spend time dressing up to work just to be emotionally abused. I don’t spend time dressing up to …

So, our identity can falter. Our will power can falter. And our body follows, feeling weak and all.

I am coughing today. My nose has been running mildly. It’s been one of those days when I don’t feel as though I am hopping from cloud to cloud. And through this process of crumble, through the serendipity of you are not alone, my good buddy – the name cannot be exposed for reason you will find later – met me up for lunch, and then dinner, and then a movie that I was dying to watch but no one seems interested.

I have no idea why The Straits Times rated the movie “Sugar and Spice” so bad. Then again, I have been consistently disagreeing with them. The acting is solid, especially hands down to Yuya Yagira, the award winner of Cannes in 2004. The scenery shots are beautiful. The presentation with the actors narrate throughout the movie is poetic. “Sugar and Spice” is about the passion of first love, and the passion of love. Being the king of “dumpee”, I can so totally relate to every single moment of the intensity of falling in love and to face the eventuality of … love is a journey, an experience, and feeling the pain at times make us feel alive. “Sugar and Spice” bears it all and it reminded me of what I have been through. Then I thought, perhaps the reviewers at The Straits Times just not having the opportunity to experience love at all. I asked my good buddy who has yet to experience love if the show is enjoyable. The answer is yes. I was surprised. And my good buddy was surprised at The Straits Times’s review too. Too bad, today is the last day “Sugar and Spice” being shown in Singapore.

I wish this blog entry is just another movie review but it is not. All this world needs or what we need is empathy, the ability to love someone or something (such as whales), and the ability to love oneself. And for God’s sake, stop hurting each other with the words we say, the things we do, the words we didn’t say, and the things we didn’t do.

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Action & Thriller Movie Reviews

The Kingdom – More A Thriller Than Politics

The Movie Review Squad met unexpectedly at Orchard over the weekend and while Cynthia and TK were having coffee and cake at The Centrepoint, I was assigned to walk over to Cineleisure and pick a movie in the name of spontaneity. If it was up to me, I would have picked a Japanese movie for a change. For lack of a better choice, we settled on “The Kingdom”.

I knew what “The Kingdom” is about and I also knew that this movie is written by Matthew Michael Carnahan – the same screenwriter who wrote “Lions for Lambs”. While “Lions for Lambs” focuses on the politics with the special US operation at Afghanistan as the background, “The Kingdom” centers at the US counter-terrorism investigators inside Saudi Arabia having politics as the background instead. Majority of the movie was filmed on locations in America while part of it was filmed on UAE. Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner played the characters of the investigators (a team of 4 in total) and part of the movie reminded me of CSI and Alias. What I really enjoy watching was the acting performance of the two Israeli Arab actors Ashraf Barhom and Ali Suliman. Although “The Kingdom” is lacking in character development – which is understandable as it is a thriller, the bonding development between the US investigators and the Arab guards is perhaps the highlight of the movie. Some of the lighter moments arise due to the cultural differences between American and the Arab are nice to watch, amid such an intense thriller type of plot.

When I reflect upon the storyline, I wonder if the result of the investigation was linked to luck or good preparation or a bit of both. Then again, if the plot manages to entertain, who cares (I actually do unfortunately)? Perhaps not a must-watch type of movie but something to entertain when you run out of ideas.

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Fantasy & Sci-fi Movie Reviews

“Beowulf” – Now, What Have They Done To The Epic Poem?

Why do I watch that many movies lately, I do not know. It may be the sign of work starting to get into me and watching movies seems like an easy way out for lack of a more creative way to spend my spare time. Perhaps what Michael Watkins wrote in his book “The First 90 Days” is true: we spend the first 3 months learning and not adding much value to the organization, only thereafter do we start to contribute. No wonder the past one month has been rather busy, even when we officially cut our working hours by 10% (it was more than some of you guys to start with so don’t envy me!).

Actually, I wanted to title this review as “This Year Warrior Has A New Name, NOT!”. Inside the shower, I was pondering who are the great warriors on a movie screen. Perhaps King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans in “300: March To Glory” are good candidates. Somehow, the image of Brad Pitt from “Troy” got stuck in my mind. The character Achilles certainly has my number one vote as the greatest warrior on screen.

Some may praise “Beowulf” because the hero is portrayed as a flawed human being. Some may appreciate the filming technique of motion capture much like the director’s previous work “Polar Express”. I personally am puzzled with characters fading in and out of the animation. One moment I swear I see the real face of Angelina Jolie and another moment, her face looks like a piece of computer generated graphic that doesn’t look like Angelina Jolie at all. I have been thinking hard if there is some kind of significance to all these scenes of fading in and out of reality and I can think of none. (Perhaps the further it is, the more unreal it becomes?)

From what I read in the Internet, the movie deviates from the epic poem written in year 700 for quite a bit. My humble opinion is that after reading the summary, the original story makes more sense while the movie adaptation leaves many question marks in my head.

Having said all that I dislike, some scenes are really worth mentioning. I in particularly like the battle with the dragon. It was intense and thrillingly heroic. There are some emotional moments before Beowulf heading to an epic battle. And there are some rather hilarious moments too. But other than that, I think it is for the fans of English animated films by and large.

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Action & Thriller Foreign Movie Reviews

Lust, Caution – Nearly Met Expectation If Only The Story Made Sense

If only I had my way to tweak the story slightly – very slightly perhaps towards the end – it would have been more satisfying to watch. Having said that, I think Ang Lee has done the Chinese proud. I was brought up watching countless Hong Kong movie productions and since young, I have always been wondering when would be the day when Chinese makes a mark in the International movie scene. And now, we have the Academy Award-winning Taiwanese director bringing us an erotic espionage thriller, a movie that I have highly anticipated since I got the wind that it was in production. I was angry that it was released in Singapore with a NC16 rating. Cutting the sex scenes is just illegal. I will tell you why. “Lust, Caution” is centered upon the seduction of a high-ranking Kuomintang official by a young female agent. And in the context of espionage, having drinks and movies unfortunately is not the way to seduce someone. Sex is. Censoring the sex scenes strips away the magic within.

I am glad that the uncensored version releases in Singapore with a R21 rating thereafter. I am also shocked that those scenes passed the Singapore censorship board. It breathes hope to a more open Singapore. It’s about time you bet.

Let me be upfront about what is so wonderful about “Lust, Caution”. The setting is convincingly beautiful. The costume is beautiful. All of which gave me the feel of the old days in China and there it is in the movie, a tram! I can understand why those who have little background of the Chinese history in the World War II era may not be able to fully appreciate the movie as an understanding of the background is somewhat assumed. That may explain the less than enthusiastic feedback from the Western world. The pace of the movie is really slow – 158 minutes in total – but I am a patience man. I can accept the pace – though I feel that some parts can be fasten a bit – but I cannot understand why Ang Lee did not attempt to alter the story written by Eileen Chang just a little bit. After all, I believe that director has the artistic freedom to adopt the novel in the way he or she deems fit. Look at what Mel Gibson did to “The Passion”.

The storyline is the weakest link. The acting, however, is top notch. I have always been a fan of Tony Leung. He can act with just his pairs of eyes. It is true. What amazes me is that the less well known leading actress Tang Wei is able match up to Tony Leung’s performance. I am not surprised though. After all, she was selected from 10,000 candidates and Ang Lee has spent 8 solid months (3 of which prior to the actual filming) in training her. I enjoy every single moment of their acting. The sex scenes between the two of them are intense, artistically filmed, and look so real that … no wonder some of the reporters asked Ang Lee if it was real. I think I can relate to Ang Lee’s frustration. “Lust, Caution” is not about sex. Really not. It is the intense emotion between two people – one who lives a dreadful life of not trusting anyone around him executing agents in a daily basis and one who lives an acting life of toggling between completing the mission of assassination and not falling in love with that one man she needs to kill.

“Lust, Caution” – as far as speculation and the certain confirmation from the official as well as the surviving sister of the agent goes – is loosely based on true events. If only the story followed a bit closer with the true story, it would have been more satisfying. SPOILER WARNING: Click here to read the version from the official and the version from the sister in the context of the movie’s ending.

Ironically, “Lust, Caution” may not even make it to Oscar because the Taiwan authority does not think that the movie has sufficient representatives from Taiwan (only the director and the story-writer). Neither does Hong Kong accept “Lust, Caution” for the upcoming Film Awards due to similar reason. The movie is a collaboration between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. How ironic that because “Lust, Caution” doesn’t represent one single sovereign, it cannot compete to be the best movie or foreign movie of the year. Very disappointing it is.

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Drama Movie Reviews

Lions For Lambs – Quite Possibly Leaving You With More Questions Than Answers

I like watching split reviewed movies. You either get it or you don’t and I love to read how the two sides debate. “Lions For Lambs” is definitely not about another American war initiative (though that’s what the main storyline hinders upon) nor how three different stories gel perfectly together (it would have been had it meant to be some sort of thriller or drama). It is a 90 minutes of intense and rather intellectual dialogues between different characters – a senator (Tom Cruise) and a reporter (Meryl Streep) he invited for a 1 hour exclusive interview on a topic the reporter has yet to find out, a college professor (Robert Redford) and his most promising student who has lost faith on political science, and a pair of good friends heading to Afghanistan for a battle because someone in the White House has created a new strategy that would change the world.

“Lions For Lambs” attempts to expose certain inconvenient truth that unfortunately is nothing new to many people. The politicians who defend their ideals with plastic faces, the media companies that work with the government on the war of propaganda, the soldiers (lions) who fight for the country that does not even take care of them in the first place, and the officers (lambs) who sit inside the command center having no idea what it is like at the actual battlefield. Of course, there are the academics who look into the history of mankind and wonder why we keep making the same mistakes again and again.

The acting of Meryl Streep is superb, what a contrast to “The Devil Wears Prada” – a movie that I coincidentally watched on cable just days ago. And I do enjoy watching Robert Redford and Tom Cruise’s acting performance. It is rather unfortunately (again) that even with such heavy weight stars, I suspect a good portion of the audience may find the movie rather boring. I personally had a hard time trying to follow the movie. Not because the script is badly written, but rather there are so many at times fascinating conversations and to absorb them and internalize them at the same time is hard. Many may not have that patience I can imagine. What you may take away from “Lions For Lambs” is not the storyline, but rather the questions raised.

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Drama Movie Reviews

Your Name Is Justine – Painfully Hard To Watch, Painfully Depressing

I don’t know if that one intense and realistic rape scene of Monica Bellucci’s “Irreversible” is more painful to watch or the series of rape and violent scenes of “Your Name Justine” is instead. One thing for sure though, our Singapore’s Pleasure Factory is mild compare to that poor Poland girl who got sold into the sex industry in Germany.

The movie is inspired by the fact that 200,000 women are sold into brothels every day – 15,000 of them are Polish women. The fact itself is depressing. And the most depressing thing is the process of how the pimp breaks down a girl from someone innocent into a willing party to whore herself to men after being abducted from her hometown, her loved ones. That is what the majority of “Your Name Is Justine” is about. Some of the scenes are awfully hard to watch like suffocating a person with a plastic bag. That particular scene looks real to me and it seems that the actor and actress have practiced that scene for a long time. I sincerely hope that the main actress was not harmed in any way during the filming of the movie.

Is this movie worth watching? To me it is a definite yes because not everything in life is as rosy as the typical Hollywood stories. It is nothing pornographic nor erotic about this movie. It is a pure intense picture-house style of movie that tells a facet of life most of us are oblivious to. You will sympathize with the subject and even when the movie has ended and the plot has resolved itself, you will not feel as though anything has ended. Human trafficking still continues worldwide, even at this very moment you read this blog.